2025 PLENARY SESSIONS

The Drug Discovery Chemistry event is a dynamic conference for medicinal and biophysical chemists working in pharma and biotech. It is one of the few international events focused solely on discovery and optimization challenges of small molecule drug candidates.

Drug Discovery Chemistry offers Plenary Keynote Sessions on Tuesday, April 15, 4:35-5:35 pm and Thursday, April 17, 8:30-9:25 am PDT.

Returning this year is the Plenary Panel Discussion featuring Venture Capitalist Insights into Trends in Drug Discovery on Thursday, April 17, 2:00-2:50 pm PDT.

Join hundreds of your colleagues during these sessions, which include live Q&As with the audience.

PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION - TUESDAY AFTERNOON

4:50 pm Applying Diverse Small Molecule Strategies to Difficult Targets: Drugging BTK for (Neuro)Immunology
Christopher J. Helal, PhD, Vice President & Head, Medicinal Chemistry, Biogen
Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) plays a central role in certain cancers which has led to the identification and approval of several covalent inhibitors. Despite this progress, challenges exist in identifying BTK inhibitors with improved safety profiles and brain penetration to address both peripheral and central immunological diseases. In this talk we will share application of diverse strategies to inhibit or degrade BTK for optimal efficacy and safety.

Christopher J. Helal, PhD, is the Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Biogen, where he is responsible for delivering the Small Molecule portfolio, developing new capabilities, and evaluating external opportunities. Prior to Biogen, he worked at Pfizer as a Senior Director of Medicinal Chemistry. In this role, he supported the Internal Medicine portfolio and led the Synthesis Technologies group that enabled critical chemistry for all of Pfizer Medicinal Chemistry. He received his BS at The Ohio State University and his PhD at Harvard University under Professor E.J. Corey where he studied asymmetric catalysis.

PLENARY KEYNOTE SESSION - THURSDAY MORNING

8:40 am Simplifying Synthesis with Radicals
Phil Baran, PhD, Chair & Professor, Department of Chemistry, Scripps Research Institute
Our latest findings on how the use of radical cross-coupling can dramatically simplify the practice of medicinal chemistry will be presented through the invention of reactions that have wide-substrate scope, use ubiquitous starting materials, and are experimentally trivial to conduct.

Phil Baran was born in 1977 in Denville, New Jersey. He received his BS in Chemistry from NYU in 1997, his PhD at the Scripps Research Institute in 2001, and from 2001-2003, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard. His independent career began at Scripps in the summer of 2003. He currently holds the Darlene Shiley Chair in Chemistry. Phil has published over 200 scientific articles and has been the recipient of several ACS awards, such as the Corey (2015), Pure Chemistry (2010), Fresenius (2006), and Nobel Laureate Signature (2003), and several international distinctions, such as the Hirata Gold Medal and Mukaiyama Prize (Japan), the RSC award in Synthesis (UK), and the Sackler Prize (Israel). In 2013, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow; in 2015, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; in 2016, he was awarded the Blavatnik National Award; and in 2017, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, USA. He has delivered hundreds of lectures around the world and consults for numerous companies, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb (since late 2005), Boehringer-Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, DuPont and TEVA, and is a scientific advisory board member for Eisai, Abide, and AsymChem. In 2016, he was appointed as an Associate Editor for the Journal of the American Chemical Society. He co-founded Sirenas Marine Discovery (2012) and Vividion Therapeutics (2016) and, in 2013, he co-authored The Portable Chemist’s Consultant, an interactive book published on the iBooks store along with his graduate class in Heterocyclic Chemistry (viewable for free by anyone on iTunes University). Outside of the lab, Phil enjoys spending time with his wife, Ana, and three young children, Lucia, Leah, and Manuel.

PLENARY PANEL DISCUSSION - THURSDAY AFTERNOON

2:00 pm Venture Capitalist Insights into Trends in Drug Discovery
PANEL MODERATOR:
Daniel A. Erlanson, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer, Innovation and Discovery, Frontier Medicines Corporation
Dr. Daniel A. Erlanson is the Chief Innovation Officer for Frontier Medicines, which is using covalent fragments, machine learning, and chemoproteomics to target proteins often thought undruggable. Prior to Frontier he co-founded Carmot Therapeutics, where he contributed to two clinical-stage molecules. Before Carmot, Dr. Erlanson spent a decade developing fragment-based discovery technologies and leading medicinal chemistry projects at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Erlanson was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with James A. Wells at Genentech, earned his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University in the laboratory of Gregory L. Verdine, and his BA in chemistry from Carleton College. He has co-edited two books on fragment-based drug discovery and is an inventor on more than a dozen issued patents and an author of more than forty scientific publications. He also runs a blog devoted to fragment-based drug discovery, Practical Fragments (http://practicalfragments.blogspot.com/).

PANELISTS:
James Edwards, PhD, Venture Partner, Samsara BioCapital
Jim joined Samsara BioCapital as a Venture Partner in Fall 2022 and has over 28 years of experience in drug discovery across multiple therapeutic disciplines. Prior to joining Samsara, Jim spent 22 years at Janssen Research & Development in roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently, he was Vice President and Global Head, In Silico Discovery & External Innovation, leading a multi-disciplinary group of computational & data scientists providing predictive and design tools across all modalities within the Therapeutics Discovery organization at Janssen. Prior to this, he was Vice President, Discovery Chemistry, leading drug discovery teams at multiple sites in the US and Europe. These teams were responsible for the discovery of small molecule drug candidates working with partners across all six Therapeutic Areas within JRD and delivered clinical-stage small molecule drug candidates against targets ranging from kinases (e.g., BTK, JAK) & other enzymes (MALT1) to cytokines (IL17) & cytokine receptors (IL23R).

Seth focuses on 8VC's Bio-IT investment area where he invests, builds and supports companies across areas such as therapeutics, tools, bio-infrastructures and broader applications of biology. He joined 8VC from Amgen’s Business Development technology group, where he was responsible for search & evaluation and transactions for platform technologies across a number of therapeutic and functional areas. Seth was also responsible for strategic academic partnerships across all therapeutic and geographic areas. Prior to Amgen, Seth was at ZS Associates where he led teams engaging in market research, sales force design, and strategy. Prior to ZS Associates, Seth was co-founder and COO of Protomer Technologies, a Pasadena-based biologics startup. Seth received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the California Institute of Technology and holds a BS and MS in Biochemistry from Brandeis University.

Swetha is a Vice President with OMX Ventures. In her current role, she sources and leads diligence on investments, and supports several portfolio companies. She also serves as a board observer at VedaBio and Glyphic Biotechnologies. Prior to OMX, Swetha was an Associate at Flagship Pioneering after completing the Fellows Program in 2018. In this role, she co-founded and operated three new companies in AI/deep learning, agriculture, and cell therapy. Before joining Flagship, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School developing novel cures for hearing and balance disorders. Swetha holds a PhD in Medicine (Neuropharmacology) from the University of Sydney and Bachelor of Biomedical Science with Honors from the University of Newcastle.

Dr. Christopher R. Smith is the Executive Director for Drug Discovery at Mirati Therapeutics. Mirati is a targeted oncology company focused on targeted solutions for genetic and immunological drivers of cancer. Prior to Mirati, Christopher spent over a decade developing fragment-based approaches coupled with medicinal chemistry to discover development candidates across a range of therapeutic areas. For example, MRTX1719 and SGX523 for cancer and TAK-020 for inflammation. Christopher co-led the FBLD conference in San Diego in 2018 and is a strong advocate for fragment-based approaches in drug discovery. Christopher obtained his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Glasgow and started his medicinal chemistry career at Pfizer, Sandwich in 1999.

Elena Viboch is a Managing Director at General Catalyst, where she focuses on investing in life sciences. Her investments include ArriVent Biopharma, Cellanome, Dewpoint, Maze Therapeutics, Parabilis Medicines, and Variant Bio, and she serves on the boards of ALLInBio, Faro Health, Paradigm, and Pallando Therapeutics. Prior to joining General Catalyst, Elena served as an Investment Director at SoftBank, where she helped build SoftBank Vision Fund’s healthcare portfolio, driving investments in companies such as Devoted Health and Vividion Therapeutics and serving on multiple boards. Earlier in her career, Elena worked in investing at Kearny Venture Partners and held operating roles at Carmot Therapeutics and NanoString. She’s passionate about working closely with rising entrepreneurs to help them bring their work from idea to execution to impact. Elena holds a BA from Swarthmore College, an MS from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School where she graduated with highest honors as a Baker Scholar. Elena lives in San Francisco and enjoys hiking throughout the Bay Area.

Wendy Young, PhD, is a biotechnology, pharma, and life sciences executive and board advisor with more than 30 years of experience in the discovery and development of new medicines for patients. She currently serves as a board member and scientific advisor at several venture capital backed start-up companies and is an advisor at Google Ventures.

Previously, Wendy was an executive partner at MPM Capital, where she actively supported investments and new company builds. Prior to this role, she was the Senior Vice President, Small Molecule Drug Discovery at Genentech, where for 15 years she actively built and led the research & discovery organization. Under her leadership, more than 25 clinical candidates progressed into development. Additionally, Wendy led the BTK discovery program and is co-inventor of fenebrutinib, which is currently in Phase 3 trials for multiple sclerosis. Prior to joining Genentech, Wendy held roles of increasing scientific leadership at Celera Genomics and Scios, a J&J company. Wendy is an inventor and/or author on more than 70 published patents and manuscripts.

Wendy earned her PhD in chemistry from Princeton University under the guidance of E.C. Taylor and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratories of Samuel Danishefsky at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.